A blog about the Big Four of the English Premier League

The Road to Bernabau

Anfield nights and Champions league games are always meant to be legendary, as the word is mentioned often about The Beatles. And not The Kanye “Jackass” West kind that it was when Liverpool played Hungarian Champions Debrecen in their first Champions league encounter this season. But then Kanye West himself wanted to be as legendary as The Beatles and was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike one a couple of days ago. Ryan Babel however denies these accusations for obvious reasons.

Hip-hop aside, Liverpool started their campaign in not the most glamorous of fashions with 1-0 wins like United and Chelsea, and unlike Arsenal, who were very unlike Arsenal themselves. Considering this was also Liverpool’s 100th win in European competitions, and Rafa’s 300th as a Liverpool manager, the performance was lacklustre and not absolutely gratifying. In fact, far from it.

Rafa started the game with the team and formation a replica of the one that started against and demolished Burnley. The game was boring and frustrating to the core especially when Liverpool had all the possession they wanted, they had 65% of it, and it is a little bit confounding why the killer goal never came. 10 corners,25 shots and one goal. This was against a team who were actually not there, but only pretending to be because they did not impose any kind of threat to the Liverpool midfield forget the defence, bar the one shot on target which was stopped by Reina.

If you hadn’t seen the match, this is what transpired. For the first 45 minutes nothing happened. Then Liverpool scored a goal. After that the nothing continued to happen. Kuyt scored the only goal of the game which came of Torres’ only shot of the game rebounded. Gerrard had another bad match. Perhaps coming back to midfield was a mistake. Or rather ineffective. This is not because I think Gerrard won’t be good as a midfielder, but because he won’t be as effective as behind Torres. The Torres-Gerrard link up was clearly missing. El Nino was effectively ineffective having waited all the time for the ball that never came. Apart from this Gerrard missed a couple of sitters which on any other day he would have scored bird-watching. Benayoun and Riera also missed capitalizing on their chances.

Ryan Babel came in for the last 15 minutes and he played like “The” Ryan Babel all Scousers wanted to see. Released the ball when he needed to, in addition to his usual dribbling and run-ins which were optimistic. Also performed a mini-juggle which would have been epic had he converted. It was good to see him play actually and my only positive from the game.

Despite the negative review, am optimistic about Liverpool’s chances because Liverpool always have a liking towards doing it the hard way. Liverpool next play Fiorentina minus Gilardino, which if Liverpool win will be a good start to their campaign.

Before the match the manager talked about the importance of Champions league. This is Rafa’s stage and has always enjoyed a massive pedigree even from his Valencia days. Rafa knew this was the only competition Liverpool could perform in the days he signed up. He never used to put full strength teams ahead of Champions league fixtures those days. Champions League according to Rafa was vital for Liverpool because of the money it helped bringing in. And Rafa re-invested the money on the squads the following year. Basically he used Champions league as a way to build his squad that could compete in Premier League. This year the Champions League money is massive, a staggering 1.65bn to be split amongst teams and am sure Rafa already has an eye on it. And against Debrecen and without much fanfare, The Road to Bernabau has only just begun.

You are clearly frustrated…. I’ll leave you to peace… enjoy your delusions… Btw macha.. Your peice about Rafa using the CL to win the PL is the most hilarious i’ve read from you.. I’m thinking that you’re trying your hand at a contrived sorta WUM 🙂

First of all look at the post again before posting tosh. I said abt Rafa investing in building the squad in PL and not explicitly winning the PL. U want some specs or something??

Yes am clearly frustrated. Becoz this blog is clearly not scouseland yet. Everytime i come here is to find u post tosh over tosh. This is not a manc forum for u to just come in and post anything like wat u said without backing urself with proper arguments. I have given my reasons and explained the same. It wont be a big deal for me to ask some fellow scousers of mine to jump at united post and speak crap abt united..

And when u say that i am delusional or a hypocrite or that i post a lame topic or that mine is a cheap trick, just know that am totally cool and proud of it as well, having known its come from a genius and ever righteous man like u ….

Despite the negative review, am optimistic about Liverpool’s chances because Liverpool always have a liking towards doing it the hard way.
Hmm.. Considering the start you have had, I guess you couldn’t go with the usual “This is going to be our year” routine..

Despite the negative review, am optimistic about Liverpool’s chances because Liverpool always have a liking towards doing it the hard way.
Are you saying, Rafa and Liverpool are more of a cup team than a league team – the one who can put in a day of brilliance but cannot put in 4 weeks of good football on the trot?

@Kedar : Am not saying Liverpool “are” a cup team, am saying “were” a cup team. When Rafa signed in , the team had obviously had certain elements missing that constitutes consistency. Liverpool lost Owen and therefore No class striker. Our wingers that time esp Kewell spent most of the time at hospital. Champions league was a stage Liveprool cud compete becoz tactics mattered the most than consistency. After Torres arrived the mentality began to change. And when we got Riera last year , the team was almost complete. Last year was the first time under Rafa’s era Liverpool concentrated more on PL than CL.

“I guess you couldn’t go with the usual “This is going to be our year” routine..”

pretty much flak has been made out of this i have to say. I think every top team starts the year with the confidence of winning the title. Look at the news on the web over the last week. Chelsea keep reiterating the un-fact that they will the Champions league this year. Inter Milan says they will win the CL this year. and suddenly AC Milan having seen themselves at the wrong competition say they will win the CL this year. And every year you also get to hear teams like spurs and Villa saying we will break into the top4 this year. Somehow Liverpool find themselves in the wrong spot for just saying things like PL victory will be gr8 and such things. We dont even say explicitly in terms unlike other teams.

the scouce “this is our year is the most hilarious one of all the “this is our year” statements. Because they ve been doing it for almost two decades. As for villa they have their own “we want our glory days back” stuff.